My goodness, I am a fortunate human. I am surrounded by greatness.

I am not talking about the greatness of fame or fortune. I am talking about the greatness of pushing comfort zones to overcome great adversity, yet still, find ways to grow. Everywhere I look, someone is striving to take that next level. They are not concerned with placing blame or playing the victim, they are taking control of their lives and pushing hard to free themselves from unhealthy stress.

Life can be very tough. But it doesn’t have to be difficult. We make it difficult by remaining stuck in our own egos and not admiring the beauty of the human spirit in others. There is no such thing as perfection, everyone has a fault or two, or three. But we often choose to focus solely on these imperfections to cast off people we don’t appreciate. Like some kind of protection mechanism, our first inclination is to ditch the one who seems weird to protect our own weirdness. What if we embraced it? Would we be accepting a little piece of ourselves?

We invite people into our lives whom we see a little piece of ourselves in. This connection makes us feel safe. Unfortunately, playing it safe all of the time stagnates your growth. There was once upon a time I couldn’t trust inviting new people into my life. My social circle was limited, and my growth was stunted as I protected myself from the emotional pain that came from opening myself up. Even after several years of working on this, I sometimes still have trust issues with meeting new people.

Thankfully, I managed to break out enough to find some amazing people who have inspired me to trust others at first contact. It is these great folks that have shown me that by opening myself up, I can open myself up to their greatness, and through their inspiration, I can be a better person.

Isn’t that what life is all about?